Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: Blood Bloud Blud

Contents 1 Origins of the Bloods: A New Hypothesis 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The Rise of Blood Piety 1.3 Blood Piety in England 1.4 Timeline of Events 1.5 Geography of Events 1.6 Hypothesis 1.7 Evaluation Against the Three Criteria 1.8 Testable Prediction 1.9 Implications for other English Blood-Based Surnames 1.10 Implication for the German Bloods 1.11 Conclusion 1.12 Further Readings 1.13 Notes & Sources

Origins of the Bloods: A New Hypothesis

Author: Garry Michael Blood, 7 Feb 2023

Important Note: To make sense of this hypothesis, it's best to have already read these analyses:

• Origins of the Bloods: Word & Name
• Origins of the Bloods: Distribution in England
• Origins of the Bloods: Common Origin Hypotheses

Introduction

Never underestimate the value of dumb luck in genealogical pursuits. I was recently doing additional research to better characterise the use of the word blood in Old English. My hope was that by examining as many examples as possible of blood in use in surviving Old English texts, I might get a better idea of how Old English speakers understood and used the word, and any nuance that might have been obvious to them but is lost on us today. In the course of that little expedition, I ran across a reference to something that I think is of major importance in understanding the origin and meaning behind the surname Blood. That reference set me off on a new tangent; exploring the arrival and spread in England of the new medieval passion for the veneration of the blood of Christ, called "blood piety" by modern scholars of the Middle Ages. That in turn developed into a new and promising hypothesis concerning the origins of the English surname Blood.

The Rise of Blood Piety

When we look at the word blood in the context of medieval Europe, the most important blood for anyone of that time, regardless of the language they spoke, was the blood of Jesus Christ. Christian orthodoxy held that the redemptive shedding of blood by Jesus of Nazareth on the cross at Golgotha was the only source of salvation available to humankind. A medieval European Christian would have viewed it as the most important blood that had ever existed, and in fact it was often referred to at the time as ‘’the most precious blood.” The reverence for the blood of Christ extended back to the earliest Christian churches of the late first century CE, when the first Christians initiated the practice of consuming the Eucharist -- the consecrated bread and wine used to represent the body and blood of Christ.

The blood of Christ and the Five Holy Wounds^[1] from which the blood issued in the passion story became increasingly central to medieval European Christianity, beginning in the monastic communities on the Continent in the 11th and 12th centuries^[2] and continuing to grow as an important symbol of Christian veneration across Europe over the course of the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1264, Pope Urban VI acknowledged and institutionalised this new passion for the veneration of Christ’s body and blood by establishing the Feast of Corpus Christi, known by its less used formal title as the ‘’Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.’’^[3] Relics purported to contain the blood of Christ were enshrined in various religious establishments in Europe, usually resulting in these places becoming popular pilgrimage destinations for the pious. The most famous of these were and still are:

• The Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo, Spain, which has displayed a sweat cloth (sudarium) believed to bear Christ’s blood since 840 CE.
• The Basilica of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, Italy, which has a phial of blood allegedly previously discovered in 804 CE in the presence of the Emperor Charlemagne, but which went missing only to be rediscovered in 1048.^[4]
• The Abbey of St Martin in Weingarten, Germany, which in 1048 received a phial of blood donated by Holy Roman Emperor Henry III, which was one-third of the "rediscovered" 804 CE find from Mantua.^[5]
• The Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium, which guards a phial of holy blood gifted by Thierry d’Alsace upon his return from the Crusades in 1150.^[6]

The "frenzy of blood"^[7] that was the blood piety movement really started to take off in Europe in the 13th century. Bands of flagellants (penitents who whipped their own backs bloody raw) began roaming Europe seeking communion with Christ through suffering and shedding of their own blood. Beatrice of Nazareth (d. 1268) was later described by hagiographers as being inundated in the blood of Christ when she received the sacramentum dominici corporis:

"It seemed to her that all the blood which flowed from his wounds was poured into her soul, and that all the drops of that precious liquid were so sprinkled on it that it was wholly washed by these drops and most perfectly cleansed from all the dust of sin."^[7]

By the late 13th century a "quasi-eucharistic rite of drinking the blood of the relic" (i.e., relics purported to contain the blood of Christ) had developed in which wine or water was poured over the relic and then drunk, in the belief that this act had transformed the water or wine into Christ's actual blood.^[8] While blood piety reached its height as a religious craze in the 14th and 15th centuries, it's clear it was already an important cultural influence in the first part of the 13th century, and probably earlier.

This new passion for the veneration of Christ’s blood also influenced art and literature, both secular and religious. Prior to the rise of blood piety, even the crucified Christ had been portrayed with minimal blood loss, but that changed with the increasing veneration of his blood and wounds:

“Depictions of Christ’s crucifixion were increasingly bloody in the later Middle Ages. The crucifixion came to be valued as the true moment of humanity’s salvation, even more so than Christ’s resurrection and incarnation. Christ’s power lay in his ability to withstand and overcome suffering, yet descriptions of his moment of victory increasingly emphasized the human experience of pain. Devotional writings of the late Middle Ages turned Christ’s wounded body into the focus of love, sacrifice and suffering, with which a human could intimately self-identify.” ^[2]

Blood Piety in England

This being long before the Protestant Reformation and the eventual break between the English Church and Rome, what impacted the Continental European Christians was inevitably going to impact English Christians. The new fervour for the veneration of the blood of Christ had reached England by the beginning of the 13th century -- Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury 1233 to 1240, was known to wash the wounds of a crucifix with wine then drink it, a clear adaptation of the practice of pouring water or wine over blood relics mentioned above.^[8] Important for our discussion here, this is evidence for the presence (and official acceptance) of the blood piety movement in Kent in the early 13th century.

In fact, Canterbury had developed an unusual local parallel to the wider blood piety cult found in the rest of Europe long before Archbishop Edmund's day. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in the cathedral by knights acting on behalf of (but possibly without the approval of) Henry II on 29 Dec 1170.^[9] In the immediate aftermath of his death, the crowd in the cathedral rushed forward to dip fingers and items of clothing in his blood, clearly anticipating that they had witnessed a great martyrdom. Within days, stories began to circulate of the miraculous effect the dead archbishop's blood was having on the sick and lame. Bishops around the country lamented Thomas’ death, drawing parallels between his martyrdom and the death of Jesus Christ.^[10] The cult of St Thomas Becket that quickly developed in England in the late 12th century included the drinking of the "waters of Saint Thomas," water mixed with the martyr's blood. In 1220, his remains were interred in a new golden shrine in Canterbury Cathedral, which became even more of a place of pilgrimage than it had been before.^[9] So, Canterbury from the early 13th century had elements of not only the larger blood piety cult of Jesus Christ, but also a separate but related veneration of the blood of St Thomas Becket. Double the blood, double the piety it seems.

The main blood piety movement, the one focused on Jesus Christ, enjoyed yet more official encouragement in England from the middle of the 13th century:

• In 1247, King Henry III, clearly recognizing the spread of blood piety among his subjects, purchased a phial of the blood of Christ from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, placing it temporarily in Holy Sepulchre Church. On 13 Oct of that year, with great ceremony and fanfare, Henry himself carried the cylinder containing Christ's blood through the streets of London to its permanent home in Westminster at Westminster Abbey.^[11] This was the first relic of Christ's blood in England, and the only one in the country for the next 23 years.
• In 1270, Edmund of Cornwall gifted a phial of holy blood to Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire. This abbey had been founded in 1246 by Edmund’s father Richard, Earl of Cornwall and younger brother of Henry III.^[12] Edmund had acquired this phial of blood, believed to have come from the coronation regalia of Charlemagne, first Holy Roman Emperor, in Germany in 1268. He presented it to the abbey on 14 Sep 1270, and Hailes Abbey rapidly became a major destination for Christian pilgrims from across Europe. It would soon become one of the most important pilgrimage sites in England, second only to the Shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury.^[13] Hailes was even mentioned in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale: “By God’s precious heart, and by his nails / And by the blood of Christ that is at Hailes.”^[14] The veneration of Christ’s blood at Hailes continued unabated until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1538 ended its tenure as the second most important religious site in England.
• In 1283, the same Edmund who donated the blood to Hailes Abbey founded Ashridge Priory, a college of Augustin canons. He endowed the new priory with a second phial of holy blood, taken from his original purchase from Charlemagne’s regalia in 1268. Like Hailes Abbey, Ashridge Priory quickly became an important place of pilgrimage from across Europe.^[15]

According to scholars of the period, it's hard to underemphasize the widespread and culture-altering nature of blood piety in England from about 1200 to 1500. It was a pervasive and peculiar aspect of European Christianity that infused itself into every part of English society, from liturgy to literature and from iconography to common speech (e.g., God's blood! became a common oath or swear in England). As the specialist scholar Caroline Walker Bynum stated, "A full exploration of blood piety would necessitate a discussion of almost every aspect of medieval devotion and medieval life."^[16]

Timeline of Events

Now, let’s review the timeline of events related to blood piety in England, combined with key events in the development of the surname Blood:

• 11th to 12th Centuries: The new passion for the veneration of the blood of Christ developed in Continental Europe and then spread among the people of England, gaining a foothold and spreading through the population.
• Between 1129 and 1307: William Blod is named in a deed of sale in Coventry.
• 1170: The martyrdom of St Thomas Becket and birth of his cult, which contained elements of blood piety and parallels with the blood piety of Jesus Christ.
• 1233 to 1240: Term of office of Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, an adherent of the cult of blood piety around Jesus Christ.
• 1247: Henry III acquired the first phial of Christ’s blood to appear in England, keeping it at Holy Sepulchre Church in London before moving it permanently to Westminster Abbey.
• 1256: William and John Blod appear on the Assize Roll in Northumberland.
• Between 1262 and 1274: Agnes Blod, widow of Robert Blod, donated lands she owned to Pershore Abbey in Worcestershire. Pershore Abbey is 15 miles from Hailes Abbey.
• 1270: Edmund of Cornwall gifted a phial of Christ’s blood previously owned by Charlemagne to Hailes Abbey.
• 1281: The eventual large Blood presence in Hereford is first recorded in this year.
• 1283: Edmund of Cornwall established Ashridge Priory and endowed it with a second phial of holy blood from Charlemagne’s regalia.
• 1321: The eventual large Blood presence in London is first recorded in this year.

Geography of Events

The map below tells the story graphically. It's pretty obvious the great majority of the earliest records of Bloods lie on a line running northwest to southeast from Hereford to Canterbury. The five religious sites in England associated with blood piety -- Hailes, Ashridge, Westminster, Holy Sepulchre London, and Canterbury Cathedral -- all lie on this same line.

But doesn't this map conflict with what we know of the distribution of the Bloods in late Medieval and early Modern times, when they were clearly concentrated in the Midlands and not in the south of England? No, I don't believe it does. While the sites related to the cult of blood piety in England were in the south, blood piety itself was found across all of England, the British Isles, and Europe. It would have been as pervasive and as normalised in the north of England as in the Midlands or the south. The period from 1200 to 1400 covers both the introduction of blood piety into England in the late 12th or early 13th century and the height of its cultural impact in England from the 14th century onwards. This is, coincidentally, the same period in which social pressure to adopt surnames was compelling that change more and more widely among the population, with about 75% of the English adopting hereditary surnames between 1267 and 1400. That process was fastest in the south of England, which is where, with only two exceptions, we see all of the earliest instances of Blood as a surname or by-name.^[17] So the existence of blood piety sites in the south, and the early instances of the surname Blood in the south, give us no insights at all as to what was happening in the Midlands at that time, where we know beyond any doubt that someone (or probably several someones) had adopted Blood as a surname not later than the early 1400s.

Hypothesis

If it’s not clear enough by now, my hypothesis is that the surname Blood was adopted due to the new passion for the veneration of the blood of Christ. I hypothesize that several families in the south, and probably in other parts of England, all chose the surname Blood out of their reverence for, veneration of, or dedication to Christ's blood, a cultural phenomenon that was wildly popular at the time.

Evaluation Against the Three Criteria

Based on the evidence and analyses presented in Origins of the Bloods: Word & Name, Origins of the Bloods: Distribution in England, and Origins of the Bloods: Common Origin Hypotheses, I set out three criteria that I believe must be fulfilled by any hypothesis seeking to explain the origin of the surname Blood in England:

1. The meaning of the surname must have been so closely linked to the word blood in all versions of English that the two have evolved in lockstep ever since the surname's adoption.
2. The meaning of the surname must have been widely recognised and widely understood by people in different parts of England.
3. The meaning of the surname must have been such that several unrelated families in different parts of England would have had reason to adopt it in the 200-year period from about 1200 to about 1400.

So, let's take each in turn:

1. The meaning of the surname must have been so closely linked to the word blood in all versions of English that the two have evolved in lockstep ever since. PASS. The surname would have been directly linked not just to blood, but to human blood.
2. The meaning of the surname must have been widely recognised and widely understood by people in different parts of England. PASS. As we've seen and had confirmed by scholars on the subject, blood piety had infused every aspect of medieval life, both religious and secular. It was as much a cultural movement as a religious movement, and so the meaning behind Blood as a surname and the reason for choosing it would have been widely understood.
3. The meaning of the surname must have been such that several unrelated families in different parts of England would have had reason to adopt it in the 200-year period from about 1200 to about 1400. PASS. As mentioned previously, blood piety was a pan-European movement, and as such was found in every corner of England. It was a fervent and pervasive cultural movement, bordering on a cult, and I have little doubt any person in any part of England (or Europe in general) would have understood the motivation behind adopting Blood as a surname.

Ironically, however, “religious” is not one of the categories of English surnames cited on various genealogy sites.^[18][19] Yet, the surnames Bible, Bishop, Christian, Church, Deacon, and Priest are without much doubt religious in origin, and at least some derivations of the surnames Cross and Chalice are likely religious in origin as well. Blood would, therefore, fit perfectly well in this context.

Testable Prediction

As stated in criteria 3 above, if true then this hypothesis strongly implies that not all English Bloods are related and therefore it would be very unlikely that all English Bloods share a Most Recent Common Ancestor in a historical timeframe. This also fulfills a requirement of any proper hypothesis -- that it must be able to make testable predictions. This, then, is my testable prediction. While we have extensive Y-DNA data on a group of English-origin Bloods, so far they're all Midlands Bloods. To test this hypothesis, we would need Y-DNA results for Bloods whose pre-1700 ancestry is from somewhere other than the English Midlands.

Implications for other English Blood-Based Surnames

This hypothesis could also provide a plausible explanation for other English Blood- surnames such as Bloodgood (Good Blood, i.e., the Blood of Christ), Bloodworth/Bloodsworth (i.e., Worthy Blood or Worthy of (His) Blood) and Trueblood, which could have referred to the true blood of Christ (see "True Cross" and other similar True X constructions in medieval Christianity).

Implication for the German Bloods

As a corollary, this hypothesis would also offer an explanation for the surname of the German-origin Bloods, which surname entered the English-speaking world as an anglicization of the modern German surname Blut, from the Middle High German bluot, both also meaning blood. Given that blood piety had already taken root in the German principalities before arriving in England and given also that the Germans began adopting surnames before the English, it's entirely plausible that the same motivation to adopt Blood as a surname in England would have compelled some like-minded Germans to do that same. As with the English Bloods, this would very likely mean that not all German Bloods are related.

Conclusion

This hypothesis is plausible, historically well-founded, and meets all three of the criteria I established beforehand that any explanation for the origin the English surname Blood would have to meet. I believe this hypothesis is promising and warrants more research and testing.

Further Readings

• Blood of Christ
• The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages [Requires a free JSTOR reader's account]
• Aspects of Blood Piety in a Late Medieval English Manuscript: London, British Library Additional 37049
• Medieval European conceptions of blood: truth and human integrity [Requires a free JSTOR reader's account]
• Three Christological Devotions, Part 1: Wounds
• Three Christological Devotions, Part 3: Words

Notes & Sources

1. ↑ ”Five Holy Wounds,” article at Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Holy_Wounds : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Videen, Hana, PhD. ”In Old English, Blood Was at a Premium,” New Lines Magazine, 26 Aug 2022 (https://newlinesmag.com/essays/in-old-english-blood-was-at-a-premium/ : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
3. ↑ ”Feast of Corpus Christi,” Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Corpus_Christi : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
4. ↑ "Basilica of Sant'Andrea - Relic of the Holy Blood," Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Sant%27Andrea,_Mantua#Relic_of_the_Holy_Blood : accessed 8 Feb 2023)
5. ↑ "Weingarten Abbey - Relic of the Holy Blood of Jesus," Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weingarten_Abbey#Relic_of_the_Holy_Blood_of_Jesus : accessed 8 Feb 2023)
6. ↑ "Basilica of the Holy Blood," Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_Holy_Blood : accessed 8 Feb 2023)
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Bynum, Caroline Walker. Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. University of Pennsylvania Press: 2007, p.4.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Bynum, Caroline Walker. "The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages," p.691, main text and footnote 20. Church History, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Dec 2002), pp.685-714. Available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146189
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} "Thomas Becket," Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket : accessed 8 Feb 2023)
10. ↑ "Canterbury Cathedral: Piety, Murder & Beauty," EnglandExplore.com (https://englandexplore.com/canterbury-cathedral/ : accessed 8 Feb 2023)
11. ↑ ”Mysterious Relic Brought to Westminster,” Christianity.com (https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1201-1500/mysterious-relic-brought-to-westminster-11629836.html : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
12. ↑ ”Hailes Abbey,” Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hailes_Abbey : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
13. ↑ ”The Holy Blood of Hailes,” English-Heritage.org.uk (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/hailes-abbey/history-and-stories/the-holy-blood-of-hailes : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
14. ↑ ”The reign and ruination of medieval England’s favourite relic,” TheTablet.co.uk (https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1588/the-reign-and-ruination-of-medieval-england-s-favourite-relic : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
15. ↑ ”Ashridge Priory,” Wikipedia.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashridge_Priory : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
16. ↑ Bynum, Caroline Walker. "The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages," p.691, main text and footnote 20. Church History, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Dec 2002), p.713. Available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146189
17. ↑ "England Surname Origins (National Institute)," FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Surname_Origins_(National_Institute) : accessed 9 Feb 2023)
18. ↑ ”There Are 7 Types of English Last Names - Which One Is Yours?,” Ancestry.com (https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/there-are-7-types-of-english-surnames-which-one-is-yours-2/ : accessed 6 Feb 2023)
19. ↑ ”England Surname Origins (National Institute),” FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Surname_Origins_(National_Institute) : accessed 6 Feb 2023)